To the family

The impact of addiction on the family and loved ones of the addict is unmistakably hard to quantify and impossible to deny. The addict is selfishness personified while whirling away recklessly in the throes of active addiction and as such he or she rarely if ever stops to consider the profound effect of our choices on friends and loved ones. Countless broken marriages, ruined relationships with children, shattered trusts and pains too deep to be easily forgiven litter the trail of recovery. The simple fact is that we are incapable of justly loving others while we are busy trying to kill ourselves.

Family members are right in the epicenter of “Hurricane Self,” a most apt description of the still-suffering addict. We make rash decisions based on little else outside of whimsical, fleeting impulse while damning the consequences. We don’t stop and consider the effects of our actions on any scale outside of immediate pleasure or pain.

We are enslaved by the need to place our own desires above anything and everything else and as a result we don’t really care what we do to others until the behaviors force us to pay consequences. We then miraculously sprout a conscience in the very same location burned bare by our scathing self-hatred and our guilt and shame know no limits.

The next phase is one of remorse accompanied by some form of expressing deep regret. We then fish for sympathy by telling anyone in earshot that we always screw things up and that we aren’t worth anything and probably never will be. We swiftly turn the focus from the wrongs we have committed to why you should feel as sorry for us as we do for ourselves. The rollercoaster won’t stop until we drive ourselves off on another binge that is destined to bring about this same dramatic sequence: stupidity, apology, and self-loathing. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

I have no right to offer much advice to families of addicts, but I can say what I feel helped me start to turn the corner. Nothing short of unconditional love tempered by a refusal to validate my behavior was ever impactful in a positive way. You can love someone without co-signing on his or her self-destruction.

The tough sort of love, the firm-but-fair and unconditional type was all that ever made me feel okay about being me. That’s all that really works to this day. I still shut down in a very unhealthy way when confronted negatively or by nagging “suggestions.” In order to speak love into the life of an addict you must acknowledge our mistakes but make sure that we know beyond any doubt that you love us anyway. At some point we grant ourselves permission to believe you, and the healing has begun. Further down that same road we begin to internalize the source of our love and can then prove quite capable of loving ourselves and others as well. Admitting our wrongs and becoming willing to make amends for them must follow. Once we can begin to make those amends to our family members we have been put firmly on the path to living happily, feeling joyous and truly free.